Miller Tells Owners to Get On With Talks : MacPhail Produces a New, Reduced Estimate of Baseball’s Losses

The nominally retired chief of the baseball players’ union warned owners representatives Monday that with an Aug. 6 strike date just two weeks away, they are “way overdue” in making a comprehensive salary and benefits offer in the collective bargaining talks.

Marvin Miller said that in a three-hour informal meeting in New York, he and Donald Fehr, the current union leader, told the owners’ delegates, led by Lee MacPhail, that it is time to move beyond debates about the financial status of major league baseball to specific bargaining.

Miller said that the Aug. 6 deadline is firm and that in order to provide time for ratifying any settlement, agreement should be reached at least a few days in advance.

But there still seemed no hurry on the part of the owners. Although they have said that a one-third share is too much, they have not said what percentage of their $180 million-a-year national television contract they are prepared to contribute to the players’ pension fund.

The only reported specific development coming out of Monday’s two meetings--including a brief formal session and the lengthier informal talks--was that MacPhail cut almost in half the owners’ earlier estimate of the 26 baseball clubs’ overall losses.

Instead of estimating losses for this year of $58 million, MacPhail said they will be under $30 million. And instead of estimating losses for 1988 of $155 million, MacPhail cut it to $86 million. He explained the recalculation on the basis of fresher figures and some accounting changes. Some of the clubs are making money, according to the owners, but more are losing it.

The union, however, has challenged all such estimates. MacPhail has said that organized baseball lost an overall $43 million last year, but the union has estimated it made a profit of $9 million.

Miller said that in the informal session Monday morning, he and Fehr told the owners’ representatives they thought it was pointless “to have a war about the different crystal balls we’re using,” and that it time to move on to more fruitful negotiating.

He said that it was up to the owners to come up with a proposal, since they have proposed a salary cap that would represent a radical departure in the way management-labor relations in baseball have been conducted.

MacPhail was not available for comment. Earlier, he had said that his recalculation of baseball’s purported losses had “narrowed the differences between us.”

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who publicly came out against the owners’ salary cap proposal over the weekend, was in New York Monday. But there were no reports of activity by him.

More talks are scheduled for today.